Elite: Dangerous, the modern day reboot of Frontier Developments’ iconic spacefaring game, will be released on Xbox One as a console exclusive later this year.

Phil Spencer, the Microsoft executive in charge of Xbox, announced the deal during a press conference held at GDC on Wednesday. Later in the day, Frontier Developments exec David Braben assured fans that the console port would be “the complete and authentic Elite: Dangerous experience”.

In a follow-up interview with GameSpot, Braben said it was not an easy choice to lock the game to one console platform exclusively.

“I think there were lots of factors – it was a hard decision,” he said, “they’re both great platforms.”

Braben suggested that his studio’s previous partnerships with Microsoft, such as with the Xbox One launch title Zoo Tycoon, gave him more reasons to partner with Microsoft.

“We’ve had a long relationship with Microsoft,” he told GameSpot.

“The Xbox audience has been very good to us. We’ve sold quite a few Xbox games with Microsoft. We also had a launch title for Xbox One, so our tools and technology has been battle-hardened on Xbox One already.

“We have a lot of experienced people at the studio who know Xbox One intimately, so it actually is a very logical choice for us. Also, Xbox One sales have been doing very well since the price went down, so it’s an exciting time. But it was a difficult decision.”

Elite: Dangerous shipped on PC in December, and drew a mixed response from critics. GameSpot’s Elite Dangerous review summarised: “simply existing in Elite: Dangerous is enough to drive home its incredible scale,” but added that “most of space is populated only by stale trading systems and fetch quests.”